Wednesday, 7 January 2015

Multiculturalism and the Holocaust

When Australia became independent in 1901 her population was 98.5% white, and nearly all of that was British in origin. Now that number is around 70% and with mass immigration and a low birth rate that number will continue to decline. But how did such a thing come to pass?

We were not defeated in war nor has there been a natural disaster that has compelled people to flee here. No, this came to pass because the Australian Government decided to make it policy. That policy is called Multiculturalism and this policy now exists in nearly every white country. But why was Multiculturalism adopted?

To answer that we must go back to the 1800's and look at the Cult of Progress. Liberalism in the early 1800's began to see a very bright future for it's self and a big part of that was the rapid rise of technology. With technology no problem was beyond solving, if not today then certainly tomorrow. And the rate of technology was increasing, the future couldn't help but be better. With this idea grew another idea, that not only technology was progressing, but so was man. Man couldn't help but be better, man would become more humane, more intelligent, just better. War would end, man's inhumanity to man would end, things would just get better and better.

And there was some evidence to back this up, in the 1700's there had been lots of major wars in Europe, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War and the Wars of the French Revolutions. Each of these wars involved most of Europe on one side or the other. But the 1800's were different, there had been the Napoleonic Wars, but once they ended at Waterloo, peace came to Europe. There were still wars, but not major Continent wide conflicts. It genuinely seemed as if war was becoming something that belonged to the past. The century even saw the beginnings of International justice as nations sort to settle disputes via International Tribunals instead of by war.

But the Twentieth century was to see a number of these assumptions badly broken. The first was in 1914 when the first general war in Europe broke out in 99 years. What a war it was, massive in every way. The idea of progress took a big hit, but it wasn't out. Many saw the Cult of Progress alive and well in Socialism and Communism. The second great crisis of the Twentieth century, the great depression saw further faith put in these twin ideals. The third great crisis was the Second World War. A war that saw the mass bombing of cities and civilian populations. And it saw the Holocaust.

Mass deportations of people, the mass killing of civilians, these the Nazi's did all over Europe. From Crete to Norway and from France to the Volga. But their most infamous action was their attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

This would have far reaching consequences as it created the biggest challenge to the Cult of Progress. Mankind was supposed to be more evolved than this, how could a civilized European people do such a thing?

Of course a civilized European people hadn't carried out the Holocaust, the Nazi's did and they did it because of their political beliefs. But not only did the German people get the blame, so did all of Christian Civilization, the civilization of the West. Because the Nazi's made a mockery of the Cult of Progress. They showed it up for the false God it was, a God just as false as the Nazi's God.

Liberalism wanted an answer as to why the Holocaust had happened, but the answers they got didn't have anything to do with Nazism. They decided that what was to blame wasn't the Nazi's, it wasn't a political ideology and it wasn't a conspiracy theory, They were only the surface, but underneath was the real answer. What did the Nazi's want? Whatever they wanted must be to blame. Whatever they wanted had to be destroyed.

The Nazi's talked alot about white supremacy, the supremacy of Christian Europe and the purity of race, These things were to blame for the Holocaust, To stop another Holocaust these things must be stopped, they were responsible, they must be punished for the past and they must be stopped from carrying out another Holocaust. Nazi's didn't kill the Jews, ideas did. In a sense, yes, ideas can inspire people to kill, but in the end it is not words that kill people, it is actions. Without the Nazi's to carry out these actions there would not have been a Holocaust.

When the Second World War ended Europe was in chaos with millions hungry and homeless. With the Communist take over of Eastern Europe many of those homeless people couldn't return home. The United Nations asked Western nations to take in these refugees and over the next decade most found homes in new countries. Here was the beginnings of Multiculturalism. People who didn't really want to go to new countries being received by people who didn't really want to receive them. And overwhelmingly both sides made do, But Liberalism saw this differently, they saw a chance to promote the brotherhood of man, to get the Cult of Progress back on track, If people mix together, live next to each other, then people will learn to understand that people are the same all over. Prejudice will end and humanity can get back on the path to the Cult of Progress.

But of course people already lived in these countries, they had their own communities and histories. Liberalism wasn't that interested in them, it was as always, interested in Liberalism. Liberalism had a plan to fix the world and they weren't going to let anything get in the way. So when someone complained about what came to be called Multiculturalism, they were often met with the word "Nazi"! Your not allowed to interfere with Liberalisms plan to save the world, they don't care about your life or your objections, all they care about is their intentions. As all major political parties are Liberal, Multiculturalism became policy. The concerns of ordinary people don't matter. Liberals are convinced that they hold the answer to stopping another Holocaust, to ending war and to stopping mans inhumanity to man and that answer is Multiculturalism, and they are absolutely wrong.

9 comments:

An excellent summation. A further idea is the effect of the nuclear age, which introduced a dramatic amount of fatalism into culture. The works of Arthur C. Clarke are a good example, as is the original series of Star Trek. (Prime Directive)

I’m not sure how much effect the Holocaust had. Let’s face it, the Left isn’t bothered by mass murder. The communists in Russia and China murdered maybe ten times as many people as the Nazis did and the Left still believes implicitly in communism. If tens of millions of people have to be sacrificed to achieve communism the Left is happy to pay that price. The Left also likes to ignore the inconvenient fact that the Nazis were leftists.

The Holocaust may have had some effect on conservatives, with misplaced guilt causing them to become progressively more feeble and more inclined to surrender rather than to fight.

I suspect that Pond Observer is right, that the nuclear fear was the big factor in promoting the cult of surrender. The radicals who began the process of destroying our civilisation in the 1960s certainly didn’t give a damn about the Holocaust.

Another major factor was that despite all the sacrifices made the Second World War ended in almost total political defeat for the western Allies. The Soviet Union was the only winner. After making those sacrifices the people of Britain and the United States found themselves facing a much more dangerous enemy, and a much more hostile, confusing and frustrating world. The lesson many people seemed to draw from that is that fighting for a cause is futile. It’s much better just to surrender immediately.

There is a very bizarre idea that the Nazi's weren't really Leftist's because they had the word "Socialist" in their name, but thats not true. Some believed in Socialism, but most didn't and those who did believe in it didn't run the Third Reich. The Nazi's believe in Social Darwinism, not Socialism and they aren't one bit the same.

"the Left isn’t bothered by mass murder", is a massive overstatement. Some on the Left aren't bothered at all. But each time Communist mass killings or acts of aggression took place Communist members in the West left the party, or were expelled when they complained about it. Liberals were also very critical, in fact if Liberals had not been critical of Communism there would have been no Cold War.

Nuclear fear was certainly a factor, but it allied itself with the idea that mass murder, including the Holocaust, was possible. It was not either or but both.

"The radicals who began the process of destroying our civilisation in the 1960s certainly didn’t give a damn about the Holocaust" This is absolutely wrong! The radicals of the sixties talked about the Holocaust endlessly, Don't support Civil Rights? You must be a Nazi who wants to kill all blacks! Support the war in Vietnam? You must be a Nazi who supports killing all the Vietnamese people! Support the nuclear deterrent? You must be a Nazi who supports exterminating the entire World! And yes they really talked like that and believed it.

"Second World War ended in almost total political defeat for the western Allies" I'm just stunned anyone can think this. The Second World War was a massive victory for the West, militarily, politically and economically. It left us much stronger than before the war in all of these areas. The Soviets also won, but they paid a much bigger price than we did for that victory. To say they were the only winner is to forget how much damage they suffered during the war. Having said that you may be right about it leading people into feeling it was futile, but not for the reasons you've stated.

The real question about the Second World War was why did our society start going bad from that point on. Liberals believed, like Communists, in a programmed future. For Liberals the Holocaust caused them to doubt themselves and that is part of the reason, not the whole reason but certainly a big part of it.

I see in the Lost Generation after WWI, a despair that progress was inevitable and good. The effect of the Holocaust made nationalism taboo in the Western countries. The reconstruction of Germany and Japan, intended to destroy the prewar militarist conservatism, and supplant liberalism in its stead. The German variant we know as "Christian Democracy".

The real importance of the Holocaust as a distinct event apart from the war, is a descendent of Civil Rights era historiography. An American parallel is the Japanese Internment. The liberals wanted to give voice to the marginalized, but also wanted to deconstruct the white Christian majority, to achieve equality.

Liberalism was disappointed with both war's as they believed war was becoming a thing of the past. But the Holocaust shook them to their core because here was an event that they just didn't see coming. It was totally outside of their worldview.

For those who lived through WWII, more practical matters concerned them than thinking about the Holocaust. But it wasn't forgotten either and your right, during the civil rights movement of the early 1960's it was used to show that Jews had something in common with Black Americans. Thats why you will sometimes hear of the "holocaust that was slavery". It was also used to show how the Holocaust could happen to anyone.

60s radicals certainly threw the word Nazi about with gay abandon, but I don't think they actually cared about the Holocaust itself. The word was simply a stick with which to beat anyone who disagreed with them.

The Second World War was certainly an overwhelming defeat for Britain. They lost their empire, they were reduced to the status of a third-rate power and they suffered years of economic deprivation. They still had rationing long after the war ended. There was a flood of British migrants to Australia, escaping the economic misery of Britain.

The US appeared to win the war but instead of peace and security Americans got nearly half a century of living with the terror of nuclear annihilation, and they got endless wars. This was largely due to the treachery of Roosevelt and Truman who cheerfully handed half of Europe and half of east Asia to the communists, thus ensuring decades of instability. The 1950s was a decade of anxiety for Americans and it sowed the seeds of the social collapse of the 60s and 70s. The US was left economically strong but morally in despair.

The US went through a postwar economic boom, largely due to not facing any damage to the industrial base. Through the Marshall Plan and NATO, it removed any independent European foreign policy from 1956-1991.

The seeds of social morality collapse in the 60s, have roots in the 20s. The difference is the invention of reliable contraception. Television was also critical, as it centralized a global mass culture. At the end of the USSR, the Russian people wanted blue jeans and rock n' roll.

The Internet, through its decentralization, will probably mean the end of liberal dominance, but the future will be more divided than today.

Where the radicals of the 60's were using the Holocaust, cynically or as you put it "cared" is not important, what is important is that they did use the Holocaust to further their political aims. That makes the Holocaust important to the study of Liberalism and to our to current concerns.

Britain won WWII, the effects of the war were serious. But Britain was weak in 1945 not just because of the war. It was still in debt from WWI, the depression sure didn't help and then on top of that add bad governance by both Labor and the Conservatives and it's no wonder it was in trouble. The Governments didn't get much better after the war and it's hard to find a good Government in Britain in the last century.

All political victories, stalemates and defeats create their own problem. The United States experienced that after WWII. To blame that on Roosevelt or Truman is wrong. Furthermore and I've said this to you before, Eastern Europe and China never belonged to Roosevelt or Truman so they couldn't loose them as they weren't their's to lose in the first place!

I'll talk about nuclear fear in another post as it's an important and interesting topic.